This invention relates to postage metering systems and more particularly to post office window type systems having a scale, a processor, a postage meter, a display and a keyboard; and still more particularly to the display of prompting messages and error messages in such systems.
Postage metering systems have been well known for use in the mailrooms of large corporations and other organizations which mail large number of items, where they have greatly increased efficiency and productivity. Recently, the postal services of various countries have begun efforts to make the advantages of such postal metering systems available to the retail customer, i.e., the person who brings one or a few items to be mailed to a post office window. In response to these efforts, manufacturers have begun to develop post office window systems which, while having many similarities to postage metering systems known in the prior art, are in many respects different from the postage metering systems of the prior art.
Though an exemplary system intended for use in a large mailroom, as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,308,579 to Dlugos and a post office window type system, as shown in FIG. 1, are similar in many ways, important differences do exist. Firstly, because a post office window type system is used for a wider variety of applications, including, in many countries, banking transactions, the system of FIG. 1 includes a CRT type display. In contrast, the display in the Dlugos, et al. system is limited to a small number of 7 segment display units, primarily intended to display computed postage values.
A second difference between systems such as that taught in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,308,579 and post office window type systems in that post office window type systems provide full alphanumeric keyboards.
Due to the necessary international marketing emphases, a problem which must be overcome by post office window type systems is a need to economically provide a system wherein prompt and error messages are provided in various languages and dialects. While prompts and error messages have been used in other systems, such as that taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,135,662 and in commonly assigned copending patent application Ser. No. 491,843 to Daniels, such prior art systems have been concerned with the problems of providing some limited prompting capability in the face of the limited display capabilities of prior postage metering systems and have not been concerned with the problem of dealing with prompts in large numbers of languages and dialects.
Thus, it is the object of the subject invention to provide a post office window type system which is readily usable by operators speaking a variety of languages.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such a system which is acceptable to the postal services of countries where a number of languages or dialects are spoken.
It is another object of the subject invention to provide a post office window type system which may be maintained by technical personnel who are not intimately familiar with the language or dialect spoken by the operator.